We here on the PlayStation Home team are pleased to announce that we are kicking off the holiday season in a big way come this Thursday, December 10th. We have quite a few surprises lined up for you, and I don’t want to give away too much too soon, but it’s safe to say that this year’s festivities will run for the remainder of the month and will include some very surprising developments.

That is, of course, assuming the entire community works together to solve the puzzles (and collect the rewards) associated with the huge Festive Tree, coming to Central Plaza this week. Peep the picture below (smuggled out of the developers’ offices by yours truly) for a sneak peek of what’s in store for you. And make sure you log in every day throughout the holiday season to solve puzzles, unlock rewards, and help transform PlayStation Home into the premier party destination for the New Year.

In other holiday-related news: We are releasing a ton of additional festive items that will help you celebrate the holidays properly in PlayStation Home, no matter what your personal style may be. Included in this new batch of items is a free menorah, for all of our community members that want to celebrate Chanukah in-world (free items for those of you who want to celebrate Christmas, Xmas, Kwanzaa, and even that holiday “for the rest of us” are currently available in the Mall). You’ll also find the Dead Space 2 Miner outfit (for guys and gals) in the Costumes store, along with a heap of other costumes bundled at prices that simply can’t be beat.

MotorStorm fanatics will find yet another addition to their collection awaiting them in the Estates store this week. The MotorStorm: Pacific Rift personal space is a perfect retreat for you and your friends after a day (or night) or racing around the 16 destructible tracks that make up the off-road mayhem of MotorStorm: Pacific Rift. Show the world that you are a true road warrior by customizing this unique beachfront locale with the MotorStorm-themed virtual items available in the Furniture store, and then invite your friends over to launch into multiplayer matches of MotorStorm: Pacific Rift. Check out this hot new personal space in the pics below.

This Friday, December 11th, we will be throwing a scavenger hunt event to celebrate the release of Hudson Entertainment’s Diner Dash. Those of you that log in between the hours of 12:00pm and 5:00pm PST (3:00pm and 8:00pm EST) will find segments of a voucher code scattered throughout PlayStation Home. The first 50 users that assemble and redeem the code will receive one free download of Diner Dash on the PlayStation Network. So if you’re reading this now, it’s time you get into PlayStation Home and start searching high and low. These codes are guaranteed to go fast!

Last but certainly not least, our development team has managed to resolve the Z(7,-104) error that a small number of users had been encountering when logging in to PlayStation Home. In order to resolve this problem we will be rolling back the last reward item received on all affected accounts. This will fix will be deployed during this week’s regularly scheduled downtime (please note that due to the extra work required this week, the maintenance period will be extended).

Once this rollback is complete, users previously affected will once again be able to log into PlayStation Home with all of their other rewards and items intact. Of those previously affected, a very small number of users may find that their rewards have been rolled back further than the previous item in order to permanently fix this issue. This was done on a case-by-case basis, to ensure that all of you could get back into Home.

As always, stay tuned to this blog for more info about the season’s upcoming content and events (including another chance to win the UNCHARTED 2: Among Thieves Fortune Hunter Edition. There’s so much cool stuff set to release over the coming weeks and months that we are sure you will keep coming Home time and time again.

Unfortunately, HOME needs to make money somehow and charging us for virtual items is one of the ways they can are nickel and dime us.

Nonetheless, thanks for the continued support and update of HOME. This service has taken a completely different direction than it was first introduced to us and I think this is why it hasn’t been a success yet.

Please fix the FREE iteams in home I spend an hour looking for free clothes only to find out there mixed in with all the stuff that U buy. U can’t make another icon for free stuff? I would rather be getting trophys or talking to fellow gamers in home Rather than wasting an hour trying to find FREE stuff it shouldn’t be that bad. and not only that you have to click on every single iteam to find out if it is free or not. (This is a big wast of time) and is one of the resons I don’t use home.

@the complainers… ya complain about paid items.. these servers are not free for sony… there are free items u can obtain… no one forces you to buy anything. HOME is something you can get on for free and you complain..free stuff free stuff… HOME itself is a free app with many any many many things to do… i can keep saying many for every single game top do but i wont.

From what I’m seeing here on the forums is the complaint of using real currency to purchase in-world items. Well, in all honesty, that is how the free service is paid for – with our real money. If you don’t like paying for items, or that you view them useless, then your choice is to not purchase them.

The only complaint I have with Home is the lack of in-world updates. Personally, I don’t really visit Home all that often anymore because it’s just too boring. Mainly of fast traveling, plus, there isn’t much to see. Sure it’ll be nice to zip where ever you’d like to go, however, traveling on foot and enjoying the new scenery would be nice too. And once everything has been seen before Home becomes a bit dull.

Speaking of Motorstorm, everyone should make a European PSN account to get the free Motorstorm: Artic Edge dynamic theme before SCEA decides to charge money for it over here as was done with the Afrika dynamic theme that you can get for free if you make a Japanese PSN account. You can get free stuff while simultaneously helping Sony fraudulently inflate the PSN subscriber numbers.

@ 18 home is not a game so why you think we can trophies ? lol ok let not stop there how about for ever movies i watch on netflix i get a trophie or ever time i log in to the blog i get a trophie and etc etc lol do you see how dumb that would be.

I appreciate the attempts to add more content, but there is a fundamental problem, speed.

You need to make Home faster. Loading the app and moving between different areas. It’s too slow and frustrating to use. I dread loading it up because it takes forever to get to where you want to be and you lose interest and the desire to visit. Make it quicker and more people would occasionally drop in.

How about being able to save favourite areas on the XMB for instant access?

I know its a beta, but come on let’s make thinks snappier and more useful.

@ 28 ok so let me get this straight i can earn a trophies by launching game in home? look next time you have a idea ……… let it go . lol there are some games on the PSN there you can earn a trophie by been the host but there not free so you may have a problem with that since you have a problem with a free service that no one making you or others downloading it right guys missing the point and the boat.

You know, HOME used to have public space voice chat in 2008 as it was advertised in that GDC 2007 promotional video. But it was taken away. Now it’s more than a year after that advertised feature was removed. That seems like more than enough time to fix any issues with it. But since it has yet to return in a year, it seems likely that this feature will never return. This is just one piece of evidence that a few of the other features advertised by Sony in that GDC 2007 video, such as the trophy hall of fame, will never be implemented. But if you wish to keep waiting for promises to be unfulfilled, that’s your prerogative. Just know that Sony lies, and don’t expect anything that they advertised in that video to actually come true.

Hey L_S, I never got that error message when I try to log into home, instead my screen would freeze during the load screen of the studio apartment. I already deleted all the home files on my PS3 but this freezing issue still happens – will the fix you mentioned here help me get back into home?

@7+19+25+28 cowboyd21 Im trying to give some ideas maybe if U would stop being a troll. (And acting like U know it all). maybe U like going threw all the clothes (for an hour)just to find some thing for free. It a wast of time just like U. I love my PS3 so screw U. K